Dangerous Games
by mortuarism
Summary: Young Aoi doesn't know what to expect when her and the Spirit Detective gang gets sucked into a completely new world.
1. Chapter 1

"You really should've shown up last week." Genkai said in a scolding voice, sighing as she made her way to stand behind the seventeen year old girl. She looked down at the familiar skin, remembering back to when the girl was a young four year old sitting in the exact same place in the exact same way. The remembrance of that caused her face to relax and soften some.

"I couldn't get out of work to come up here." The young girl said softly, shutting her eyes as she prepared. She was hunched over, her hands cupping her breasts from the world. "As it turns out, it gets very busy at restaurants during the festivals."

Genkai let out a wheezy laugh, looking at the black gunk that was slowly starting to drip down the girl's small back. It was coming from scars that were in the shape of a bite mark, running from the small of her back, to the other side along her stomach. Genkai rubbed her hands together, as she slowly began to press her hands against the gunk. A light began to build up on her palm, small squealing noises coming from the black gunk, as it squirmed to get away. But the only way it could get away, was crawling back under the girl's skin where it belonged.

"There." Genkai said, obviously pleased with the work that she had done then. She grabbed the wet cold wash cloth from the ground and slowly wiped some of the remaining dead gunk off of her skin. The girl shivered a bit at the sensation, her skin a bright red from where Genkai had worked.

Standing up, the girl slid her bra back on in and momentarily looked at herself in the mirror. The skin around her scars was a light pink, but it would go back to normal soon enough. She knew it was dangerous not to go to Genkai immediately when the demon blood began to escape her, but she had been working nearly twelve hours a day, and hadn't had the time.

That was until she had woken up that morning with a heavy fever and dark blood staining her sheets where the blood had attempted to escape. But it needed her as much as she needed it, so it never got very far away from her.

She was pale, and sickly looking, but that was how she had looked since she was four years old. A constant battle inside her body between the human blood and the demon blood, one that she most of the time ignored. She didn't indulge her demon blood with doing anything with the demon energy that it gave her. Something that she suspected was probably why her blood was always trying to escape her.

She stood at around five foot four, and her pale skin was stretched across small bones. She had long grayish purple hair that fell around her mid back but it was currently put up into a messy bun on top of her head. Her eyes were large and had a bright teal color to them, with flicks of bright gold throughout the color.

When she turned around to grab her folded shirt, Genkai had already gone into the kitchen to pour them some tea. She picked up her black v-neck shirt and slid it over her head, sighing softly.

Walking into the small kitchen, she sat down across from the old woman. The sweet smelling tea was already poured for the two of them, and she sat down with her legs crossed on one of the pillows.

They sat in a comfortable silence, both of them enjoying the sound of the soft rain hitting the roof and the taste of Genkai's special tea. Until the conversation that always caused a rift between the two of them began.

"Aoi." Genkai started, putting a hand up when the girl was about to interrupt whatever she was going to say. When she was sure that the girl wouldn't speak, she began. "If you would just allow me to train you, you could control the demon side, and possibly become a very strong…"

"I appreciate your concern, I truly do. But what use would I have with power? Besides, I enjoy our visits." Aoi said softly, completely derailing Genkai's concern. At least for a moment, within all the time that the two had known each other, Aoi had somewhat become a daughter figure to Genkai.

So naturally, she wanted Aoi to at least become strong enough so that if a demon decided to attack her, she'd be able to defend herself. With all that demon blood inside of her, it was amazing that it hadn't yet happened.

They went back to their silence, enjoying the fresh air that was coming in from the window. Shutting her eyes, Aoi tilted her head back and just listened to the noises going around her at that moment. Birds were singing to each other, trees leaves were making soft noises as the rain hit their leaves.

A loud voice that clearly belonged to a teenage boy rang through the air, calling for Master Genkai. A second later a tall boy with curly orange hair fell into the room, flat on his face.

Aoi looked completely startled, and her heart was racing like she was about to have a heart attack. She was in her 'Quiet on a Mountain with Genkai' mode, not loud teenager mode.

Genkai was already on her feet, yelling at the boy apparently named 'Kuwabara'. He had this guilty expression on his face until his eyes landed on Aoi, someone he obviously took quite a bit of interest in immediately.

"Who're you?" He asked, slowly scooting closer towards the girl, but moved back when there were more pairs of feet hitting the wooden floor. Genkai straightened herself up and gave Aoi a look that clearly said 'Don't worry'.

A few moments later, the door slid open and there were five new faces standing in the door to the kitchen. There was one girl, with light blue hair that had a big smile on her face, clearly pleased to be seeing Genkai. A full grown teenager with a binky in his mouth was standing by her. Right beside him was a teenage…Boy with long red hair and big green eyes. Next to him was a very short male with black hair that seemed to defy gravity itself. In front of the group of new comers, was a boy that Aoi did recognize.

It had to have been years ago when she first saw him, training in Genkai's back yard. Yusuke, if she remembered names as well as she liked to think so.

"Aoi, this is Botan, Koenma, Kurama, Hiei and you may remember Yusuke." Genkai said, being the gracious hostess and introducing her to the group that had just walked in.

"Oh yeah, I remember you." Yusuke said, blanking for a moment in his quick remembrance of her. "You should probably leave, we have business here."

Despite the rudeness that the boy had just given her, there was something about her voice that made her think that she should just trust him and leave. She stood up, and was allowed exit out of the room. Genkai was already getting wrapped up with whatever the group was saying, so she would just have to call on her another time when she needed her help.

Grabbing her bag, she slid open the door and let out a quiet gasp.

The rain had disappeared, and snow was now falling down from the sky. This was not something that happened in this time of the year, it was closer to summer then it was winter. It also wasn't terribly cold at the moment, so it surprised her further.

But strange things had been happening, so she slid her shoes on and took a step outside. But to her surprise, it didn't smell like snow, and it didn't' feel like snow either.

Ash.

It was ash falling from the sky, and as she looked up, she could see a figure. In a moment, the figure had jumped from the branch down to the ground, exposing itself for what it really was.

A fat frog demon was sitting in front of her, its many chins wobbling still from the jump.

"You smell delicious." He gurgled out, starting to waddle his way towards her. She instantly took a step back, but the terror of what she saw was stopping her from completely running away from him. Suddenly a pair of arms had lifted her up and brought her inside, a few inches from her face the door was shut.

Looking up, she saw the intense eyes of the one called Kurama, he was obviously waiting for something. His arms slowly unlocked from around her waist, as he pushed her back away from the door, him standing in front of her.

Kuwabara and Yusuke were both standing on either sides of her, and she decided to move back further to where Botan and Koenma were standing.

"What's happening?" She asked Botan, the most friendly looking person of the bunch. The girl looked at her and smiled a bit.

"Nothing we can't handle!" She said, smiling even wider. She clearly had much faith in these people. Genkai had moved up to the front along with Hiei.

There was dead silence around them, and it was kind of terrifying considering what was right outside the door. For at least three minutes it continued, until something broke it.

It sounded like someone was sucking the wind out of a pipe, and it got louder and louder. Soon enough there was wind whipping around the group, Yusuke yelling for everyone to move out of the way.

A burst of light filled the room as he shot off his spirit gun, destroying the front door. In front of them was a black hole, slowly getting larger. It wasn't large enough to envelope the whole house, just enough to take up the whole door way.

Maybe because they were the lightest, Aoi and Botan fell to the floor and were quickly sucked up by the black hole. Genkai was soon to follow, but she was mainly going to make sure that Aoi and Botan were going to be okay. Yusuke followed Genkai to make sure that she was okay. Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei followed to not be left behind.

Before Koenma could be sucked up with the rest of the group, it disappeared, and he was stuck standing in the room with a surprised expression on his face.

"This can't be good."

_Author's Note!:_

_Hi guys! I know it's been a really long time since I've written ANYTHING, but here you go! Yes, this is a chaptered story, so expect many more coming from me! I haven't done a non-slash/non-femslash story in almost six years! Which I think says a lot about me. None the less, I hope you enjoy!_

_xo_


	2. Chapter 2

"It's time for you to get up right now." Genkai's voice came from somewhere in the darkness, an edge of panic on the edge of her voice. The feeling of a soft small hand shaking her shoulder was the thing that finally woke Aoi up, jerking her awake quickly. She looked around, totally stunned at the fact that everything that had happened in the dream appeared to have all really happened. Everyone else was either still passed out on the ground, or trying to wake up the one's pass out.

Hearing odd noises on the left of her, she turned her head and watched as Kuwabara was literally kicked awake by Yusuke. She cringed a bit watching the curly haired boy roll over and hold his stomach in pain, cursing out his friend. Botan was waking up, looking around the area with a very nervous look on her face. In the corner of the clearing, Hiei and Kurama were quietly consulting each other.

"Hurry up; we need to get out of here." Genkai urged, giving Aoi a quick shove, waking her up even further. None of them had any idea how long they had been knocked out, or where they had been brought to. But one thing was certain, they had to move someplace safer. That is, if there was someplace safe in this strange world.

"What's wrong?" Aoi asked softly, looking at Genkai as Kuwabara was fully shaken awake. Genkai pointed around them, and Aoi followed her finger. It slowly began to dawn on her that they were standing in the center of a foot print. It looked as though it was half paw and it was half human foot print. It was then that Aoi agreed that it would probably be best to get out of here. Mainly out of fear that whatever had left the print, would return.

It was surely big enough to decide to eat them, or accidently step on them. Or not so accidently step on them, either way none of them really wanted to be around for that.

"Let's get out of here." Yusuke said, vocalizing everyone's thoughts, looking at Kuwabara. After a few seconds, Kuwabara pointed in a random direction, clearly being the one that was going to navigate them through this dense forest.

There were no actual defined paths where they were, so everyone was pretty much trying to force their way through the dense and thick forest. Kuwabara was giving directions on where they should go, but as they got further into the forest, it became painfully obvious that whatever had been guiding them in the first place was now gone. It got so bad that Yusuke began screaming at him.

"We're lost!" Yusuke yelled, looking as though he was going to downright punch Kuwabara.

"It's not my fault!" Kuwabara yelled, glaring at Yusuke as he started to walk over to him with his first risen about to slug him.

Aoi, who had been walking between the two for the past half a mile, sighed a bit as she listened to them. "Fighting isn't going to help anyone." She sighed, stepping between the two and walking between the two before they fought.

Hiei let out a sigh, standing on a branch above the group. He was obviously getting tired of waiting around like this. Looking down at the group, he jumped down and landed next to Botan.

"Since this idiot can't seem to find our way, I'll go ahead." Before anyone could even say anything, he was off; the only thing left behind him was a momentarily flash of him leaving.

Genkai paused for a moment and looked at Aoi, who was paler after walking for so long. It was clear that the older woman had some kind of regret for bringing Aoi into this mess, even though she had no control over the situation. Aoi was in no way prepared for dealing with any of this, if she was needed, she would be of no use as of right now. If things were bad, Genkai was making it on her list to train both Botan and Aoi in some form so that they could at least defend themselves.

The group traveled a small distance further, not wanting to go that much beyond where Hiei had left them. To their luck, there was a circle of small boulders where they could sit and rest up for a while.

Aoi sat down between Botan and Genkai, everyone in a depressing silence. Yusuke decided to be the one to speak.

"Kurama, where in demon world are we?" Yusuke asked, everyone's attention slowly sliding over to the red headed boy. There was silence on his part, and everyone knew that whatever he was going to say was probably going to suck.

"We're….Not in Demon World." Kurama said slowly, clearly picking his words carefully. "At least, nowhere in Demon World that I have been in."

Yusuke paled, and Kuwabara looked as though he was going to pass out.

"Come on guys, we've been in worse places then this!" Botan tried to cheer everyone up, but it was so forced that no one could believe her.

"So…Where else could we be?" Aoi said quietly, not completely understanding the situation that they were in. Kurama's eyes met hers, and he let out a soft sigh.

"I don't know." It seemed to be a bit of a monumental sentence coming from him. Yusuke looked as though he was going to throw up, putting his head into his hands. Botan reached out and gently pat his shoulder.

It was clear that they weren't used to something like this, which scared Aoi. She looked down at the ground, and before everyone knew, in the center of the circle Hiei was standing there.

"There's an abandoned cabin about half a mile that way." He said, pointing in Aoi's direction. He didn't seem to need any rest, so everyone got up and started moving once again.

They didn't reach the cabin until the sun was falling behind the horizon. This meant that none of them would go out to inspect where they were. Right now, fear was going to keep them inside the small rooms. There were five rooms; four of them were small bedrooms, one was a large living room type area.

As they entered the cabin, lights flickered on, which nearly gave Aoi a heart attack as she took a step back, bumping against Kuwabara's chest.

"Don't worry, I'm here." He said in a protector voice, but it really just caused Aoi to let out a laugh and roll her eyes, taking a step away from him. He didn't seem too disappointed about that, quickly running off to check out the rooms.

Aoi stood in the center of the living room as everyone seemed to be moving around her, checking out everything. Her fingers were pressed to her lips, a thoughtful expression on her face.

"Are you okay?" A soft voice came from her left, and she quickly turned her head to look at Kurama.

"This is a lot to take in." She said quietly, a small smile coming onto her lips. She was trying to understand all that had happened. They were in a world that none of them were used to, and there were giants walking around out there somewhere.

"You're a demon, correct?" He asked, it had obviously been a curiosity that he had been holding in. Now that they were someplace that appeared safe, he felt that he was able to ask this question.

"No." Aoi answered, letting out a gentle laugh as she looked down at the floor. The curious expression came stronger onto Kurama's face, looking at her intently.

"But you have demon energy." He said, looking at her closely, obviously trying to tell if he had been seeing things or not.

"I was bitten by a demon." She whispered quietly, completely avoiding meeting his gaze. There were only four people that knew about this. One was the man that had saved her from being completely devoured by the demon, her parents and of course Genkai. No one knew, but somehow Kurama was able to see this right away.

"And you survived?" Kurama asked in a bit of a shock, his gaze softening to her. She just nodded, as Kuwabara charged over and wrapped his arms around their necks. "You're very lucky."

"Hey guys, you two are going to need to work out the last room, we've all picked ours." He said, and then charged back away to keep his bed away from Yusuke.

Aoi awkwardly laughed as she watched him run back. She had the feeling that Yusuke and Kuwabara would end up being a bit of an entertainment. Neither of them seemed to be severally effected by any of this, which was shocking to her. But she had to remember that they seemed to all have been through these things.

"You can take the bed." Kurama said, being a polite gentleman.

"We haven't even seen it yet." She laughed, stepping by him to go check in the room. The bed was small, so the polite thing would be for him to sleep on the floor. But Aoi wouldn't have that. "You don't seem like a handsy guy, I think it would be okay if we shared the bed."

She did notice the small blush that had come over Kurama's face when she had said that. But he decided that they might as well share a bed. Neither of them took off any clothes, just got in the bed and quickly drifted off to sleep.

There was such darkness when the chaos began. It started with Genkai and Botan's room, a girly scream coming from behind the door. Everyone got out of bed quickly, Aoi nearly tumbling over herself in her haste to find out what was happening.

"What's going on?" Kuwabara yelled, slamming his weight against the door. But it showed no signs of falling down anytime soon.

"Get out of the way!" Yusuke yelled, throwing hard punches against the door until it finally gave away. Genkai pulled Botan out of the room, blood dripping from the blue haired girl's forehead.

Panic instantly ensued.

A group of at least one hundred bats went flying from out of the room, each one of them equipped with razor sharp wings. Hiei suddenly appeared, slicing a few in half, but they were only replaced by ten more. In the panic, everyone went flooding from the cabin, everyone trying to keep in check of everyone else.

But in the end, everyone ended up running in different directions. The terror and adrenaline sent them running further then they needed to, splitting up without even really meaning to.

When Aoi eventually slowed down, her heart racing in her chest, she could feel her demon blood's pleasure in what had happened. She put a hand over the scar on her side, looking around in the dark for a bit. There was nothing of significance there.

She was all alone in the woods, and she was near having a downright panic attack. She turned around to try and find where she had come from. But since there was no path, and she hadn't really been looking where she was going, she had no clue where she could go, or where she could find her way back.

Stumbling her way through the forest, she grabbed a tree and slowly slid down the tree. She buried her face into her knees, shutting her eyes tightly. She was trying to find some kind of reason in her mind that would give her something that could help her situation. But she imagined that she was in a lot of danger, being out here and so unprotected.

"Aoi?" A voice came from somewhere in the dark ahead of her, her head snapping up as she looked in front of her.


	3. Chapter 3

"Aoi?" The voice repeated her name; the sound of someone walking closer to her caused her to find the quickest and easiest hiding spot. She dashed back a few feet behind her to a tree and behind it as quickly as she could. She rested her forehead against the cold bark of the tree, and shut her eyes tightly. She so desperately wished that she could just disappear into the tree. She heard the voice say her name again, and she probably would've come out of the hiding spot if she recognized it. It was no one's voice from the group, it sounded older and stronger than any of the boys that were from the cabin.

The footsteps were getting increasingly closer, the hair on the back of Aoi's neck rising as a panic began to flood her chest. Then there was an eerie silence, and she slowly lifted her head, letting out a soft sigh of relief. That was very short lived, when there was suddenly a noise coming from behind her. Turning around quickly, she looked at the man that was now standing behind her.

He practically glowed right there in the moonlight, but that was probably because his hair was a sharp silver and his clothing was all white. He was ridiculously handsome, but what set it off was the fact that he had fox ears and a tail. It wasn't a reassuring sight, and his eyes looked too harsh to be someone kind. His good looks certainly weren't going to stop Aoi from getting away from him as quickly as she could.

She took a second look at him, watching as he took a step forward to say something to her. But she decided not to stick around and find out what he was going to say to her.

She took off in another direction, making sure not to go forward or backwards. It didn't matter; she knew that she just had to get as far away from him as she possibly could. Branches, vines and whatever else was on the ground was whipping at her legs, deepening the cuts that littered her legs that the bats had caused back at the cabin. A few of them were bleeding and leaving small trails as she ran, but they were the least of her problems at the moment.

After running for an indefinite amount of time, she was running out of breath. She looked over her shoulder quickly to see if she was getting followed any further. But all she could see was darkness, and the only thing she could hear was her heart beating in her ears. She couldn't trust that voice that was saying that things would be okay. Looking ahead of her she let out a gasp.

The earth seemed to cease existing a few feet away from where she was running, and she was going far too fast at the moment to stop in time.

Turns out, she really didn't need to worry about that, as someone grabbed the collar of her shirt and lifted her up from the ground a foot or so away from the canyon that just so randomly appeared. She found herself kicking a few inches above the air, until she finally decided to look at the person that saved her life. However, when she saw who it was, she instantly threw a punch at his ribs but it was so pathetic that he didn't even flinch at it.

"Aoi." The man said smoothly, holding her up more so that he could look her right in the face. "I am Kurama, just the demon form of him. I am Youko Kurama." He continued, slowly setting her down so that she was able to have that sink in.

That sunk in pretty quickly, and after some inspection of him, she realized that it was true. "You have the same…Hair shape." She said, a bright blush coming onto her cheeks as she breathed in deeply. "I'm sorry I hit you!" She apologized quickly, even though it probably didn't even affect him at all.

He just nodded his head, taking in what she said, but his mind seemed elsewhere. His head snapped up as though he had seen something in the dark, quickly grabbing her arm and started to pull her into the denser part of the woods. She tried her best to stay standing up and running after him, but he had her constantly too high for her to reach the ground.

Finally, when he stopped, she was able to touch the ground. A second later, Hiei dropped down from the branches to stand with them within the area. The trees were close together, so Aoi leaned against a tree to catch her breath.

"I apologize; I believe there were more bats coming our way." Youko quickly said to her, before getting into a deep conversation with Hiei about what they should do. It became clear that everyone had left, thinking that they would be able to stay together. But it hadn't been able to work that way, all the guys thinking that they were leading their way.

The only two that managed to stay together were Kurama and Hiei. Somewhere in there, Kurama had transformed into Youko Kurama, but reasons for that were unknown.

After some discussion between the two, they agreed that Hiei should try and find the others and round them up. Kurama and Aoi would go on further, because it was clear that if they stayed in the same place for too long bad things were bound to happen. Youko handed something to Hiei quickly, before he got ready to run off.

"You're bleeding by the way." Hiei said, sounding so disgusted by the fact that Aoi was bleeding. With that, he was gone into the sky as quickly as he could.

Aoi had almost forgotten about the pain that she had been in, looking down and seeing the blood smeared along her pale legs. Her shorts seemed so small and unhelpful now that she looked at it. Sliding down slowly, she rubbed the side of her leg, making a face when she felt something odd about her leg. She began to press against the area that seemed abnormally swollen.

Youko got down to her level, and she took her hands away from her leg, letting him have a look at her leg. He pressed two fingers against the area, a small light coming from under her skin, and then he let out a light sigh.

"This is going to hurt you quite a bit." He said slowly, looking up at her. She nodded, and shut her eyes tightly, thinking that it was going to be a pain like the demon blood going back into her body. But it was nothing like that.

If she had been watching, she would've seen two of his slender fingers slipping under her skin, and pull a small leaf out of her skin. It was unbelievably painful, and she was shaking despite the fact that it was only a small leaf.

Letting out a light breath, she opened her eyes and looked at the blood soaked leaf. "Why was that inside my leg?" She asked, sounding breathless.

"It's a tracking leaf; it was probably put inside of you when you were running from the bats." He murmured, crushing the leaf in his hand, a dying buzz slowly disappearing from the air. Aoi nodded slowly, tilting her head back with a sigh, and then her eyes slowly slipping shut.

"I can't believe that this is happening." She murmured quietly, finally sounding as exhausted as she really was. It had been so long since she had gotten a good night's sleep, and this was pushing her to not sleep even more. There was no way that this place could exist!

Author's note:

_I'm sorry that this one is so short and not as good as the other one's so far! I'm really tired at this point and am just going to bed, tomrrow I'll update with Chapter 4 and I promise it'll be better and juicier then this one!_

_xo_


	4. Chapter 4

The sun had finally slowly made its way up, and was now peeking through the trees as they finally reached something that could be considered as a path. Aoi looked up at the sky, letting out a soft and somewhat happy sigh; they had survived one night without anymore drama. But they also hadn't been able to get in contact with Hiei, nor had they come across anyone else from the group. Youko was staring further up ahead of them, trying to make the decision if they should move on or stay where they were. Looking up at him, Aoi studied his face as he waited.

It took him a bit for him to make the decision of what they were going to do. "We're going to continue." He said, looking down at her to see if she disagreed. At this point, her entire faith was into the demon in front of her, so she just nodded. He took the first step onto the path. When the world didn't suddenly collapse and nothing went flying out of the ground, Aoi made her way to follow after him.

There appeared to be nothing wrong, so the both of them were able to relax for a while. It seemed right then, now that they felt safer that they were able to talk finally. They'd spent the night in silence, always on edge and nervous about what the next tree would hold for them.

"How old were you when the demon bit you?" Youko Kurama asked calmly, his eyes trained ahead of him. It was obviously something that he had been waiting to ask.

"I was only four years old." She said softly, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. "My mom brought me to the park and I just wandered into the woods nearby, I just thought the demon was a big dog."

He listened to her speak, and nodded his head as he heard it. He looked down at her, studying her face and body language for a little while. "Then?"

"There was suddenly this guy that killed the demon off and grabbed me from the ground. My mom then showed up and started freaking out, telling him to let me go. He told her that she should take me to Genkai as quickly as she could. So I go to Genkai whenever I need to." She said, tilting her head to the side as she walked.

"You remember a lot of it." He commented, looking ahead of them once again. She was very young, but she remembered the horrific incident like it was yesterday.

"Excuse me, sir and ma'am." The voice came from the right of the two of them, and when they looked to the side they saw a small old man with a long beard staring up at the two of them. He looked like a kind old man, so it was a little odd to find him in this world. "You both look tired; would you like to stay in my home?" He asked, making a motion behind him.

About three yards away was a large tent about the same size as the cabin that they had evacuated from last night. It was painted a light green so it basically disappeared into the foliage around it. Aoi was all ready to say yes, but there was that small part of her that knew there was something wrong with this picture. She was so tired at this point, that she was about to say yes.

"No thank you." Youko Kurama spoke, his voice sounding completely cold as he looked at the old man. A shiver went down Aoi's spine as she heard the tone to those words, looking at the tent. She wasn't able to hide the longing that was behind her gaze.

"I think that this little Miss wants a place to stay, she looks dreadfully tired." The old man said, reaching out and touching her hand with his wrinkled old hands. A weak smile came onto her lips, taking her hand slowly away from him.

"We should probably leave you be." She whispered quietly to him, bowing her head down to him in a sign of appreciation and respect towards him.

To her surprise, the old man let out a growl his eyes flashing at her. Behind him, the tent flaps opened and four overweight men all holding huge weapons. Aoi's eyes opened in surprised, taking in a sharp breath. She was suddenly behind Youko Kurama, watching as he pulled a red rose out of his hair.

That's lovely.

In a second however, the beautiful red rose had turned into a long sharp thorny whip, and he looked like he was about to kick some serious ass.

"You really think that you can defeat us all?" One of the fatter men asked, laughing so that his entire stomach bounced up and down. He knew that he didn't have to worry about Aoi, she was pretty much useless and so pathetic and small that there was no point in giving her any more attention. Well, anymore attention then some light harassment.

"Look at that little delicious mouse." Another one of the men asked, smirking as he looked over the small girl. He licked his lower lip, his forked tongue making obscene gestures in the air. Her stomach swirled in disgust as slime dripped down from the man's lips.

After seeing that obscene act, Youko Kurama decided that it was about time to end the conversation. He lunged forward, and the fight between the men began. But it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be hard to keep on top of all the men. Especially since the old man had jumped into the fight, so it was five against one. Very unfair odds, but that complaint wasn't going to do Kurama any good.

From trying to move away from getting injured, Aoi had somehow managed to end up near the green tent. She backed away from the intense fight, watching everything happening before her with wide eyes. On the bright side, Youko Kurama seemed to be strong enough to be able to handle all of them. But at some point in the fight, Youko Kurama lost track of one of the fat men. The man was making his way to her, slowly advancing with his eyes set on Aoi. She knew that she couldn't very well scream for Kurama to come save her. He was far too busy about trying to keep his ass alive to worry about her right now.

She took a hesitant step back, trying to get away from this man. As she took that step back, her foot hit something behind her. Looking over her shoulder, her eyes fell onto a metal machete laying on the ground right there. She'd never used a weapon before, but now was the best time to give it a shot now.

Reaching down as quickly as she could, she grabbed the machete by the handle it held it out in front of her. As badass as it should've looked, she knew that she wasn't going to take her anymore seriously. She was still a small girl with no muscle to her at all.

"Little Mouse, don't bite the boy who's going to hold you." He said, sounding as though he was scolding her for trying to defend herself. As he moved even closer to her, she swung the blade at him. It created a large cut across his chest.

She was horrified at what had done, but she knew that she shouldn't feel bad about that. He was thinking of doing some of the dirtiest things imaginable to her. He glared at her, and took another step, reaching out to grab the sword. This time she cut towards his leg.

The way that most of these men were built, all the weight was placed on the upper part of their bodies. So the legs were particularly slender, so when she sliced the machete down there, it didn't just cut the leg. It ended up slicing the leg in half around the knee. He was startled at this, and he slid to the ground before he could do anything. The earth shook at his weight; she let out a squeak as he fell.

"You stupid fucking bitch, I'll kill you!" He yelled, his voice sounding panicked and at the same time he sounded downright pissed. But they both knew that he was useless now, and it was time that she finished him. Raising the machete over her head, she slammed it down over his neck, severing his head from the rest of his body.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she felt peace that he hadn't suffered, but at the same time she felt utter guilt for killing another creature. At the same time, Kurama had finished the fat men off, with the old man pinned up against the tree with the whip wrapping around his entire body.

"Tell us what you know of this place." Kurama was basically demanding it from the man, glaring at him with cold eyes. The old man said nothing, except for he let out the loudest shriek that Aoi would ever imagine hearing. She covered her ears up and shut her eyes tightly, taking in a sharp breath. As he shrieked, his entire body just turned into a muddy puddle beneath the tree.

Youko Kurama looked over at her, his eyes widening as he saw the dead fat man that was now laying on the ground in front of her. "Keep that." He said, motioning to the machete that was still clutched in her hand. It still seemed so surreal what she had done.

He could see her nervousness about just holding the blade in her hand, and he made his way quickly over to her. Standing in front of her, he reached down and grabbed the hand holding the blade. His fingers were so soft and gentle against her skin, she was able to relax a little bit.

"You have to own this blade like your life depends on it, because it does. I'm not always going to be able to protect you from everything, so you need to do it." He murmured to her, slowly letting go of her hand. She was surprised to find that her fingers had tightened around the blade, and now she actually felt like she had some power.

Years of being the small, delicate girl had suddenly gone out of the window. She had to do this for herself, and she had to do it in order to live. Her demon blood absolutely loved this, for once in her life it was not trying to push its way out of her skin. For once, all her blood felt normal in her skin, and it was all happy. It terrified her, this sudden blood lust that was running through her veins.

Speaking of blood, she suddenly looked down at herself and let out a gasp as she saw the blood drenched onto her shirt. Groaning, she tilted her head back. She desperately wanted to clean this off of her.

Her head snapped forward as she heard a laugh, Youko Kurama's head was tilted back as he laughed. She looked surprised as he laughed, not expecting someone who looked so cold to have that ability in their body.

"Can we find someplace to stay for a while?" She asked him, tilting her head to the side. She was so tired at this point; she didn't think she would be able to stand up for another four hours. She needed just a moment of sleep and a few moments to relax.

She wasn't the only one; Youko Kurama nodded after a few seconds of silence. They both knew that they would have to be on their guard. But being able to somewhat relax for an hour or so sounded great to both of their aching bodies.

They made their way back to the makeshift path and walked along it slowly, but they both had their eyes peeled for anything that might cause them to have any more trouble. But everything seemed calm for the moment, and soon Kurama was leading them off the path.

Looking down for a second, Aoi noticed a small vine that was sliding ahead of them, the focus of it coming from Youko Kurama's palm. Soon enough, Kurama had dropped the vine onto the ground. Aoi tilted her head as though to question why he had done that, but she watched as he leaned over and pulled away some shrubs.

In front of them was the mouth to a cave, one that looks like it had been hidden for years from the rest of the world. It was absolutely perfect.

"Ladies first." Youko Kurama said a smirk on his lips. Aoi just ducked under his arm and slid in, falling at least a foot to the ground once she had stepped in. The ground was slick, and within seconds of Youko Kurama doing some weird demon thing, there were lights everywhere.

It was a huge cave, one that was built into the side of a mountain. The area that they walked into was huge, and there was a pool of water opposite the two of them. This was perfect, because the blood had seeped through Aoi's clothing.

As Youko Kurama looked around, it was clear that there was something familiar about this cave. Whatever it was, he wasn't about to share it with Aoi.

She quickly turned around and looked at him with her big blue eyes. "I need to clean myself off." She said, making it clear in that sentence that she was in fact going to get naked to clean herself off. If she knew him better, she would've sworn that his cheek coloring had reddened quite a bit at what she said.

"And if you watch I'll stab you with this." She said, brandishing the machete like she really knew how to use it well. After she said that, Youko Kurama just let out a barking laugh and tilted his head upwards.

"Fair enough." He said, once he had come down from laughing so loud. "I'm going to cover the entrance, you can clean yourself." He said, and with that he turned away and went back to the opening, starting to move the plants around without really even touching him.

Aoi momentarily watched him, sort of fascinated by his work. But once his tail swished, she decided that it was time to go onto getting the blood off of her. She peeled her shirt off, her pants and her bra and panties. She slid into the water and started to wash inspect the damage on her clothes.

There wasn't a lot that she could do about the blood on her clothing, so she'd just have to deal with it for the rest of…For the rest of this. She sighed quietly as she got into the deeper part, running the water over her shoulders to get it off. She ducked her head under water and got the blood that had been drying there.

"We should be safe for a few hours." Youko Kurama said from behind her, his eyes trained on her back for a few seconds while she was turned around. He wasn't being a pervert; he was looking at the dark scars on her side. He could see two eyes blinking out from one of the teeth marks, his eyes widening. The demon was slain while it was biting her, so the blood had gone into her body as she was bleeding.

"You're watching aren't you?" Aoi asked, turning her head quickly and catching him with a scrunched up nose. She could see his eyes weren't aimed at anywhere that she would've hit him for, just the scar.

"Do you even know what you are able to do with that blood?" Youko Kurama asked, sitting down on a rock, finally relaxing himself completely. "You could become incredibly powerful."

Those words caused Aoi to roll her eyes, slipping her bra on and then her panties as she got out of the water. "I've heard that a thousand times." She murmured, shaking her head. "I am a waitress; there is no reason for me to be incredibly powerful."

"Look around you; I think that's a pretty good reason for you to be incredibly powerful. You may have been better able to take care of those men." He said, looking at her as she sat down next to him. "You could've been stronger." He sighed, raising an eyebrow when her head rested on his shoulder.

"I think that I'll start taking lessons from Genkai once this is over with." If this was ever over with. She slowly shut her eyes, drifting off to a pleasant sleep. Kurama looked down at her and shifted her so that his arm was around her shoulders, her head lolled against part of his chest.


	5. Chapter 5

The pair slept a good twelve to thirteen hours longer than they had originally expected that they'd sleep, sleeping as though they had been heavily drugged. It was most likely from the extent of stress they were under and the exercise that they were getting. Nothing had disturbed them in the night for the first time nothing had happened as they stayed in one place. But now, it was time for the two of them to wake up.

Youko Kurama was the first one to wake up, his golden eyes opening as he looked around the dimly lit cave. He was about to get up and head towards the entrance, but then he felt a warm breath on his chest. He looked down quickly, suddenly realizing that Aoi had been curled up to his chest, with his arms wrapped around her slender waist. He had a moment where he thought of something, but Shuichi was quickly ending it as he forced the memory of a girl in his middle school forward. No, there was no thinking anything like that. He slowly slid his arms out from around her and stood up.

He made his way over to the entrance to the cave and looked out to the surroundings out there.

Without the major source of heat for Aoi, she slowly began to awake. Looking around the cave, she let out a yawn and made her way to the pool of water that was ten feet away. It seemed smaller now, but she was barely paying attention to that at the moment. She sat on her knees, splashing the water into her face and drinking some of it. It was cold enough that it woke her right up, and she looked over her shoulder quickly finding Kurama standing there.

She got up, running her fingers through her purple hair as she went over to him. She let out a light gasp as she saw what had happened to the world outside. Turned out, things had gotten screwy while they had slept. She didn't know why, but she had expected for the weather to remain like a mild spring day. But it was now dark out, so dark that you could barely tell that it was about noontime. Wind was whipping all around, tree branches going flying all over the place.

The big question was: Do they go out or do they stay in here? They both looked at each other, both of them debating what they should do. To both of their surprise, Aoi was the one who had made the decision.

"Let's go." Aoi said quietly, turning around and grabbing her new weapon, tying it around her waist with the use of a vine that had fallen off of the cave wall sometime. Youko Kurama nodded, staring at her for a second and then stepped out without a problem into the wind.

It was that, that gave Aoi that false hope that she could do the same. Instead, she was nearly sent flying when a gust of wind hit her, a wave of sickness hitting her as she felt it. It was almost like a fear that she would go flying, hitting her stomach with such an impact. Another wave of wind hit her, and this time she took a few steps in order to not fall on her face.

As she was near falling over, she felt an arm wrap around her waist, lifting her up from the ground on. Youko Kurama clearly wasn't going to waste time asking her about him carrying. He seemed to be so trained on something at the moment, that even if she argued with him about it, he probably wouldn't have even heard her.

He took off into the woods, heading into the denser parts of the forest as he ran. It seemed as though he knew where he was going, or at least knew where he was supposed to go. Twenty minutes must've passed before he began to slow down. He had to, because at this part of the forest the trees were so close together that once you got past one, you were bound to come face to face with another.

"What's going on?" Aoi asked quietly, as Youko Kurama set her down on the ground, but he had his fingers wrapped around her wrist. Maybe he was afraid that she would get lost in these woods, she didn't know but she appreciated it. It wouldn't be hard to get lost at this point, it was dark out in the open, so it was near pitch black at this point.

"Hiei contacted me, he found everyone else. He told me to meet them up ahead a little bit." He explained, pulling her along a little faster. It was then that she realized that there was an odd noise that was slightly muffled because of the top of the trees swaying. It was ominous.

"Maybe we should go a different way." She said, but Youko Kurama wasn't paying attention to her. She realized that he probably heard it, and that was why he was rushing to get away from it so quickly. They ended up near running the last few meters until they reached apparently where Hiei was supposed to be with everyone else.

But he wasn't there, as a matter of fact, none of them were there. Instead, there was a tall man with leather like skin standing before them. He was slender, almost as though he was a snake, and his eyes were a dark milky white.

"Hello." He said, his voice was quiet and menacing, as he laughed looking at the pair.

_Author's Note:_

_I'm sorry that this is so incredibly short, I felt bad for not having posted anything in such a while so I decided to just force this out and post it. I've had a bit of a mental block, but I promise the next chapter will be better, fluffy and longer!_


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